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texas going purple
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Date: October 7th, 2014 8:54 PM Author: abnormal brilliant personal credit line USTIN, Tex. — FOR most of a long, hot summer, Wendy Davis’s campaign for governor here resembled a cowboy lost in the desert — horseless, stumbling and finally just left for dead in the remorseless Texas heat. Despite a strong national profile, she trailed her Republican opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbott, sometimes by double digits. Among the experts, a conventional wisdom set in: Ms. Davis can’t win, Republicans can’t lose and Texas won’t change.
Yet as summer has turned to fall, Ms. Davis has entered new territory: Last week a poll by the Texas Lyceum, a nonpartisan, nonprofit educational institution, showed that Ms. Davis has narrowed that gap to just nine points, and pundits around the state are talking about a new momentum behind her. What happened?
The short answer is tactics. Ms. Davis’s campaign hasn’t been perfect, but she is dogged on the stump, and has stood up well to Mr. Abbott’s attacks.
Of course, Ms. Davis is still nine points back, and she has just five weeks to catch up. Which is why the longer explanation for her turnaround is more important, not just for Texas, but the country.
Many hoping to see Texas go purple point to the growth of its Hispanic community. And that’s part of it, but not everything. Population growth, soaring diversity and dense urbanization are also transforming Texas, much as they have done in Virginia and North Carolina.
This goes against the conventional wisdom about Texas politics, which is often rooted in a historical shorthand that begins with the election of George W. Bush as governor in 1994. Before that, the state was reliably Democratic; after that, it has gotten redder and redder.
In reality, Texas’ realignment was a process, not an event, 30 years in the making. In the 1970s and 1980s, the two major parties battled for power. Yet social change, the arrival of migrants from the Rust Belt, ultimately resolved the matter. They settled in the suburbs and voted solidly Republican. Harris County, which includes the city of Houston, voted Republican in every presidential election from 1992 to 2004.
Today that realignment is being almost precisely reversed. Texas’ economy has been booming almost nonstop since 2000, and the state added 4.3 million people between 2000 and 2010. Americans came from every point on the map. Once a minority, the Hispanic population swelled, too, and will be the largest ethnic group in Texas this year (some say they could be the majority by 2020).
Yet there is far more to political change in Texas than the emerging Hispanic majority. Take greater Houston. The suburbs that once determined its voting patterns have become just one part of a megalopolis. Covering nearly as much territory as Maryland, the Houston area is the most diverse in America — even more so than New York or Los Angeles.
Houston is not merely more Hispanic; the fastest-growing ethnic group is Asian. The kimchi taco is a hit. Some 90 languages are spoken. The city government will soon publish information in six languages. And 98 percent of the population growth in the first 10 years of this century has been nonwhite.
This diversity is rippling out to the far suburbs, counties that have long been white and Republican — and vital for winning statewide office. The most diverse part of the Houston region is now Missouri City, which straddles Brazoria County and Fort Bend County on the city’s southwestern edge and is filling with Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans seeking bigger homes and better schools.
Continue reading the main story RECENT COMMENTS
Phoenicia Yesterday I remember my father telling me he used to stand in line in the rain in Harris county to vote Democratic even though he knew it would not do... Dorr Finicum Yesterday The slow and painful return of Texas to the mainstream of America is almost complete. I am a life long resident of Texas and have watched as... ScrantonScreamer Yesterday I am very nervous about one Texas politician in particular, George P. Bush. He's got the Bush name, the Bush fundraising network and a... SEE ALL COMMENTS The same trends are found in the Texas Triangle, an increasingly dense region bounded by Houston, San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth. It includes less than 20 percent of the state’s land but all its biggest cities. Conservative politicians do poorly in these settings.
The political shift is unmistakable. In Houston, 83 percent of residents favor a legal path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Six in 10 say abortion is morally wrong but oppose making it harder for women to get one. In August, an effort to repeal Houston’s new equal protection ordinance for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual people failed.
Not only did Harris County vote for Barack Obama in 2008, but in 2012 it was joined by all of Texas’ big urban counties and cities, which Democrats have controlled for years. Republican strength is on the wane in some of those key suburbs, too. The Republican margin in Fort Bend County shrank in 2012 from double digits to just six points.
None of this is to say that Ms. Davis will win — but she might. And four years from now, she, or another candidate, will have an even easier time. No, that dusky sky up there is not blue. It is still burnt orange — but with quite a bit of purple.
Richard Parker is the author of the forthcoming book “Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/will-cities-turn-texas-purple.html?ref=opinion |
Date: October 7th, 2014 8:57 PM Author: Milky beady-eyed trailer park You're fucking done here.
Go get your POZbox.
Date: October 7th, 2014 4:54 PM Author: """'"'"'"
posting it here so benzo doesnt have to
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/will-cities-turn-texas-purple.html?ref=opinion
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694183&forum_id=2#26473946) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 8:59 PM Author: abnormal brilliant personal credit line moron. it's not there yet, but the trends are. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26475665) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 9:01 PM Author: Milky beady-eyed trailer park ............dude (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26475690) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 9:11 PM Author: Vivacious Sick Hospital /facepalm
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Date: October 7th, 2014 9:00 PM Author: abnormal brilliant personal credit line (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26475683) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 9:03 PM Author: bistre big piazza trump supporter The New York Times always seems to be looking for opportunities to argue that migration is turning red states purple or blue. They did this in an article about Eric Cantor and Thad Cochran earlier this year, they did it in 2012, they did it in 2008. I even remember them arguing this during the Southern Democrat boomlet of the late 90's when several Democratic governors and senators got elected. However, these articles, like so much of the garbage spewed by the Frayed Lady, are not well-supported by facts. See one of Fivethirtyeight's takedowns of this idea here:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/migration-isnt-turning-red-states-blue/
Texas may be getting somewhat more competitive, and maybe Wendy Davis can make a good showing this year. But these articles seem to originate from a desire to prove a predetermined conclusion rather than a desire to report facts. |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 9:10 PM Author: abnormal brilliant personal credit line do you want to post something that doesn't sidestep the issue of the same trends being present in texas that were present in NC and VA before they went purple? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26475771) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 9:21 PM Author: bistre big piazza trump supporter I'm not really familiar with the political climate of Texas. Like I said, it may be getting more competitive. However, the fact that the New York Times says it is getting more competitive because of in-migration lacks credibility. They are always looking for an excuse to trot out that old standby, despite evidence to the contrary. Based on its masterful track record, I will trust Fivethirtyeight over the New York Times on this issue any day. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26475864) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:29 PM Author: scarlet arousing filthpig cruise ship "In Houston, 83 percent of residents favor a legal path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants."
This statement means nothing. Other than 17 percent are opposed to illegals ever becoming citizens in any form ever under any circumstances. |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:32 PM Author: Vivacious Sick Hospital My god you're so consistently stupid and wrong (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26476428) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:33 PM Author: abnormal brilliant personal credit line i'll wait (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26476439) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:31 PM Author: Vivacious Sick Hospital (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26476421) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 9:51 PM Author: awkward bearded pit "And 98 percent of the population growth in the first 10 years of this century has been nonwhite."
jfc texas. pull it together. |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:26 PM Author: bistre big piazza trump supporter That was just Houston. More cherry picking. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26476363) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:27 PM Author: scarlet arousing filthpig cruise ship LOL, Benzo ur done here. She'll lose by 12 at best. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26476385) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:34 PM Author: abnormal brilliant personal credit line the trends are in place for it to go purple in the future =/= a wendy davis win in a month, obviously. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26476446) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:36 PM Author: excitant ebony theater stage Pretty much the sad reality us ShitLIbs have to live with.
2014 is priming the pump for 2020. |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:35 PM Author: excitant ebony theater stage ShitLib Here,
So Texas has a surge of Mexicans.
Minorities outnumber whites.
HOw many of those "new Mexicans" are registered to vote?
???
PROFIT. . .? |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:36 PM Author: abnormal brilliant personal credit line no, a surge of people ineligible to vote (mexicans) has nothing to do with anything (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26476465) |
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Date: October 7th, 2014 10:38 PM Author: excitant ebony theater stage This is the thing that confuses me when I read this articles.
Why is there EXCITEMENT about states turning purple due to the influx of Mexicans.
Those fuckers don't vote!
Maybe in several years when their children are old enough to vote, it might make a difference.
But Southern Dems running in 2014 are pwnt. |
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Date: October 8th, 2014 7:16 PM Author: bateful walnut stead So Benzo's ideal is for shitlibs to migrate from blue states due to nojerbs and rampant crime, then go to red states and turn them into hell holes with nojerbs and rampant crime? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26481783) |
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Date: October 8th, 2014 7:23 PM Author: Mewling Hyperactive Dopamine Heaven I think this is the crux of it. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26481814) |
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Date: October 8th, 2014 7:24 PM Author: ultramarine cruel-hearted crackhouse psychic (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26481816) |
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Date: October 8th, 2014 7:33 PM Author: bateful walnut stead I also forgot AA hires in charge or everything, shit public education, and high taxes. This is what you want, Benzo? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26481856) |
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Date: October 8th, 2014 7:31 PM Author: Histrionic Cobalt Business Firm Striped Hyena i hope "gay marriage" is worth letting the country become Meximerica. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694381&forum_id=2#26481848) |